The Job Forum

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Welcome to the Job Forum. My name is Mana Azizoltani and I am a PhD student at the Harrah College of Hospitality here at UNLV. On this show we discuss the journey through college and into the workforce with recent graduates of different disciplines. Welcome to the Job Forum. Alright let's get this party started. Christian, do you want to introduce yourself first? Yeah of course. So my name is Christian Cordova. I am born in Los Angeles, California, graduated here at, you know, V in the spring of 2020. And now I am currently a slot analyst for a casino company called a boy gaming. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of that small little company called boy gaming, you know? Yeah, no, it's pretty small. So you're a COVID grad. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Oh, yeah, uh sucked. Yeah, like, uh, as soon as everything was quarantine Working or doing school work at home was like the worst but actually there's a positive side to it. And that was um, Being more social I knew that quarantine was going to happen So I had to reach out to other classmates and get their phone numbers get their contacts, try to talk about homework because obviously we can't meet, we couldn't go and study together. So we had to do it online, we had to do it through Skype or Teams or whatever the social platform was.

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Right, so you talk about getting through school online and COVID kind of putting a wrench in things. How did that affect your finding a job later? I know, you're a personal friend of mine. I know you had a hard time finding a job. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, of course. No, of course. So it was very difficult. As soon as I graduated till,

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I believe, January of 2022, I could not find a job.

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Wait, can we talk about, just for the record, when did you graduate?

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I graduated in spring of 2020.

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You couldn't find a job until when?

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January of 2022.

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Wow.

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Yeah, I know. So that's, I know. Well, technically, technically I got an interview December, but I did not start officially my job on January the 3rd.

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Wow. Okay. All right. So what was it like trying to find a job during COVID?

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Oh, it sucked. Sometimes there was days where I had to apply 10 jobs at a time, each day. And sometimes I was thinking, and it gets to your head where you're like, am I even qualified for this job? Like, because there's a point where you're desperate to find something. Right. And COVID's not a time when people are just like hiring anybody. No, of course not. And I understood that. But of course, actually, I did do like a, I would say a contract work around like October of 2021 and that was okay, but it wasn't my thing It was just a desperation and I learned a lot from that especially a not working from home. I hated working from home During that time. So can we talk about for a second? I want to back up Yeah, and you mentioned that you know, you applied all these jobs and you couldn't find a job and that it got to you mentally. That's a feeling that a lot of students have when you're trying to find a job. We're applying to jobs all over the place. I mean, on LinkedIn, we're reaching out to hiring managers, I mean, all kind of different ways. And you might not find a job on the first try. You might not, right? You might have to apply to a bunch of different jobs. How do you deal with that failure? How do you keep going? How do you rework your mind? Yeah, no. So obviously, there was a time where I was depressed and trying to look for those jobs and a lot of support came from my dad. My dad was a very huge supporter of my work and he always told me that sometimes this happens and you have to just keep on grinding and trying to look for jobs, you know? And if it wasn't for him being there for me, I think that I wouldn't even have found this job, think about it. Okay, well, talk about finding this job. How did you find this job in the first place? Do you want to talk about sort of the journey there? Yeah, so like all jobs that I applied to, I applied it through LinkedIn. So technically, there was two jobs that were interviewing, interviewing that I was interviewing at the time. And obviously the one that I'm currently in was better. But yeah, I was looking for it. It just popped up on my screen and I was like, you know what, what could go wrong? You know, the worst that they can say is no, right? So might as well. And so you just applied for the job and then what? So you got called for an interview, I'm guessing, right? Yeah. Was it a phone interview? Was it in person? So the initial interview through HR, just seeing if you're even qualified for the job and then you have the full interview, that was like within a week. And then I believe two weeks later, they called me and they're like, yeah, we would like to have you here as an in-person meeting and it was actually two guys. It was, and that was the whole team that I was working at. It was a VP of Slot Analytics and the director of Slot Analytics. Those were, and that was it. They were just looking for an analyst. So basically looking for that third guy.

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And they chose you? No, I'm just kidding.

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No, like, well, I feel like, I think that, I don't know, for me, it was more of like, Like, we were just having a lot of great conversations. We weren't really in the nitty gritty of, you know, oh, you know, what are your strengths and your weaknesses? No, it was more of a casual conversation of like, you know, what am I inspired to be? You know, what do I see myself in five years from now? You know, kind of thing, so. Okay, yeah, I like that. So, you say you're a slot analyst.

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What does that entail? What do you do day to day? What's your duties? Yeah. What kind of things do you do?

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Yeah, of course. So currently, I like just today, right? Good, a perfect good example. This morning, got in my office, had to do a lot of exception work. So what I basically do is data clean and making sure that the properties that we manage or technically we all manage all the properties, manage their data and making sure that when it comes to reporting, when it comes to analysis on our BI side, it's just mainly like making sure that it is the correct information that leadership and other higher-ups see. Understood. And then basically sometimes there's ways that we have projects and sometimes they're very open. My VP always tells me, what is new in slots? What do you think you can find? You know, and for me it's more of a motivation of like, you know, wow, I'm not in this strict regimen of this is what I need to do. I need to do this, this, this, this. It's more free flowing. I can open my mind up to any sort of ideas. Don't get me wrong, those ideas might get shot down, but hey, you know, you got to open up, right?

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Well, it's nice to give you the creative freedom to kind of, I mean, we talk about a lot of times, and when I think of analysis jobs, analyst jobs, I think of, you know, some guy in the back crunching numbers. There's no creativity to it. And so it seems like they give you a little bit of, okay, well, where's the next trends? Where's the next numbers?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Uh, so, you know, every time that I go into it, you know, it's more of like the open mind of, like, sometimes I do crunch numbers, but I'm not really into the weeds of those numbers. Like we have like, uh, big data guys from it that really do that. We're more of like, are we seeing it correctly? And if not, then we need to talk to it or whoever it is that manages our data. Yeah, but our biggest project that we did or that we just finished was releasing a new BI tool for all of our properties. So seeing what, you know, machines, slot machines are the biggest things on their floor, what are the underperformers, overperformers, even knowing your clients, your customers, your players, how are they performing and what are their favorite machines? You know, what are your regulars love? And I can go into detail and detail.

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I think you can spare us all the details, please.

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I know, I'm trying not to, I'm getting too excited now.

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Oh, geez, well, I'm glad to see the excitement on your face. Yeah, of course. I know you love your job and I always like to listen to you talk about it because I can just hear the passion when you talk about it. No, of course. Your company's really lucky to have you. Now, sort of changing to a different sort of topic, let's talk about, you were a math major, right? Yeah. And so, we were math majors together, for those who don't know that. Of course. We suffered through the classes together. Mm-hmm. And you got a job in analytics. So, actually, in particular, you got a job in hospitality analytics. So, do you think that what you learned in your math major

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prepared you for the professional world, or do you? I'll say this, there are some definite skills that you learn from here, from my major that I took, but there's definitely some skills that I didn't really need. Perfectly good example is sometimes there is critical thinking in our major, right? You have to, there's certain steps that you need to take, right, to answer a problem, right? Cause and effect, point A to point B. That's the same effect, same thing as my job, but like do I need to learn about the second derivative of a polynomial? No. Dude, I hope not. No, of course not. Don't tell me real analysis is actually gonna be useful in your life. No, no, no, no, no. Life would be a lot scarier if that was the case, wouldn't it? No, of course. The majority of my skill just came from actually during the pandemic, learning a lot outside of it because I felt like I need to learn these tools. Obviously, there was this, I would say, a certain set of skills that you need to be to become an analyst. And for me, obviously I didn't need to be an expert, but at least I need to understand what these skills are. So for instance, a BI tool, for those who don't know, business intelligence, it's a program that easily you can use. So like Tableau is a perfectly good example. Microsoft BI tool is really good example. Even a pivot table on an Excel spreadsheet is somewhat of a BI tool in my opinion. Okay, yeah so it seems like what students should sort of think about is what are the software, what are the tools that you need to be able to use versus the knowledge you need to know also as part of it, is that what you're kind of saying? Yeah, yeah of course. Like I said, you don't need to be a world-class expert, right? As long as you have an open mind and willing to learn, right? Because technically that's how I got my job. It was more of like, and this is what my VP said to me, my boss said to me, are you willing to learn? Are you willing to get in every morning and be like, hey, this is what we're gonna do, are you down for it? And I'm like, yeah, I love a challenge. So so obviously there's some hard skills, right? Analysts, tools, programming and all that stuff, right? And then there's some soft skills. I feel like the soft skills are more apparent and more prominent than the hard skills, in my opinion. And when I mean by soft skills, for those who don't know, it's more about socializing, networking, talking, understanding, because before my job and even before college, I was a very quiet guy. I was not very social, and I feel like college and even post-college really got me out of my shell. And now I get to talk to managers, I get to talk to directors, I get to talk to even general managers of each property sometimes and present. Are you telling me you were a math kid?

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Are you telling me you were one of the standard starter pack math kids?

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Yeah, of course.

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You know? So, you mentioned that being in college and being around people got you out of your shell. So what are some of the things that maybe more introverted students or people that aren't

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used to getting out of their shell could maybe seek out and help them grow in that way? Right. You know, obviously you don't want to jump into it, right? Because then you're going to have anxiety and stuff like that. Yeah, and I know that from experience. It's just like the little things, right? It's just saying hi. It's saying, how are you doing? Say it to the next person right next to you, in your classroom, right? That are sitting right next to you. Just saying hi. Like those little things. And then just start building and building and building. You don't need to do it all at once. So that's what I would recommend.

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That's actually really good advice. I had one of my friends recently tell me, dude, Manna, how do you just talk to people in the elevator? It's so awkward. I'm just like, dude, I'm just shameless enough to talk to someone in the elevator, you know?

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And I feel like that's a gift. I feel like for someone to just easily talk to someone and just have a casual conversation, you know, is I think the best quality. And how important is that in getting a job and being in an interview and being in the workplace? Oh, it's so important. You know, actually this Monday I had a lunch meeting, or I wouldn't say a lunch meeting, it was actually a casual lunch with a senior product manager from one of our vendors, from one of our manufacturers. And it was very great just to understand where she came from, her background, just understanding, and it basically was networking. So it was from all those learning, from all those messages that I received, it's more about like just being open-minded and letting yourself go, you know, you don't need to think about it too much. Yeah, totally. So what advice would you give to students that are maybe math students, maybe they're business students that want to get into analytics? What advice would you give them? I would say don't sweat the small stuff. Don't think about what specific position I want to be in because in all honesty every industry needs an analyst. What are the tools that you need? What are the things that you have to learn? And I feel like also work on the soft skills, work on your communication, because that is really huge, and especially in the career and the job world. It's just about communication, clear communication, because, believe me, when I got there, there was a lot of things that I did not know. And I'm very grateful for my bosses that tell me, oh, you know what, I feel like this would be better on a presentation than just saying this. And yeah, just know the requirements basically. Okay, so students go through their classes

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and they may or may not learn the things that they necessarily would find on a list of things they need to know to be an analyst, right?

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Where do they go to find those things? Ooh, like, I just Googled it. I just, there's no like specific website that I would say. I just Google and look and just look at YouTube's videos because like, sometimes there are some good YouTube videos when it comes to, oh, like programs, right? Right. Like I said, you don't need to be an expert, and yes, these guys are experts, but they can definitely dwindle down to someone who is very novice of it, who's kind of like a beginner set. So definitely look into the Google YouTube videos. You'll know once you look around, you'll be like, okay, this is what I need. You know, I would just say, like, get a checklist, write it down. If you feel like you're comfortable with it, just mark it off.

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Okay, well, there's one thing that also stood out to me when you were talking about your sort of journey through, or journey to your job, and you said that you applied on LinkedIn over and over again. Yeah. How important was it that you had a good LinkedIn profile? I remember, I mean, me and you used to talk about LinkedIn all the time. Yeah.

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I think we made our profiles together even. Yeah, yeah. Obviously get a great headshot.

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Don't get it.

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Are you saying that my selfie is not good enough? No, no, I'm not saying that. It's just that sometimes it's better to be a little bit professional. I got a professional photographer for it. My dad actually told me, you know, might as well just wear a suit, you know, a nice little button-up. And you can just have it at home, right? With a white wall and someone take a picture of you. And that's basically it. You can just wear shorts. Obviously they're just gonna be looking at the top of your face in a little bit of professional clothing right there, you know? But for me, I wanted to be a little bit more outside of the box. So more in the nature. And if you looked at my LinkedIn, I was outside in my backyard actually. Yeah, I mean, plus nowadays, I mean, you need to get a professional photographer not to rag on photographers, but I think that iPhone, I mean, this iPhone I have right here is more than good enough to feature. Yeah, no, actually I just took advantage of it because I was getting my senior photos. So my dad said, hey, since you're getting your senior photos, might as well just get a professional photo for your LinkedIn. And I was like I didn't even think about that so so yeah I got two birds with one stone basically. Nice, nice. Do you remember, so I remember one things that we did together when I was in college we went to the career fair we went to the hospitality mixer do you remember that? Oh yeah it was a great time. So we were

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the two math kids that were there we were just like the two little math nerds.

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And they were more interested in us than I feel like than your regular hospitality student. Could you have imagined if someone told you that day that you were actually gonna be ending up working for Boyd Gaming in the hospitality industry? That's kinda crazy. That is kinda crazy, yeah. Because like I said, I was applying to everything. There was a certain point where actually I was in the middle of an interview with Uber. And of course I had to not, I had to stop the interview because they wanted me to move to like two, three places, either San Francisco, Chicago, or Phoenix. And I felt like those were not like very, to me, I could not resonate with those cities, especially San Francisco, very expensive, especially in entry level, not going to cover a lot of expenses. So I felt like I had to wait and see what other options as well too. And this is a perfectly, a good sound advice as well too. Just because you have a job offer doesn't mean that you should take it. Sometimes you have to reflect a little bit, see what you need to know and see what you can get out of it as well too. Because yeah, sure, you have the job opportunity, right? You have this job, but at the same time, you know, it's not probably not going to be a great fit. So that's why I would say also research about the community of that work. How is it? How do you know former employees love and or talk about, right? Or current employees if you're able to find it. So even if you're desperate, yeah, no, sometimes you have to take the gas pedal off, try to think about it, because obviously you're gonna be full of emotions, be like, oh my God, this is my first job ever, I need to take this. Hold up. It's not the end of the world, but at the same time, there's always a bigger, better option as well too, and that's actually what happened in my experience. Wow, yeah, I wanna back up to the hospitality mixture that we went to together. Yeah, of course. And I remember, I joked around about it earlier about you being the starter pack math kid. Yeah. And I mean, you weren't a starter pack math kid. You were always fine, we were friends. But you were a little, you had a problem. You had a little bit of issues talking to people, right? Oh yeah, yeah, no, actually I felt like you were a perfect crutch. I felt like, this is perfect. I feel like I need mana here in order for... Because I feel like you're like the catalyst, right? You are the startup engine. And for me, it was... I felt like I needed that. So this was perfect. Perfect. And if it wasn't for you, I feel like, you know, I wouldn't really open my shell in a way. Oh, I'm glad I could help you. But I do remember that when we first got there, I was doing the talking. I was walking up there and I was being like, oh, this is my friend Christian. But by the end, you were walking up there and you were saying, hey, I'm Christian,

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this is my friend Mana.

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Yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yeah, no, like I said, it was like a push that I needed. You know, and then this is also another great advice as well too. If you feel like you're not going to do it, just just just like shut your mind in a way. Just just go with the flow because sometimes if you think about it so much, there's going to be a point where you're not going to do it. You're going to talk yourself out of it. And how important is that practice going to those events and going from booth to booth? Oh, if you don't want the job. Yeah, no it's so important because actually there was a friend of mine way back like two years ago she just interviewed for jobs because she wanted to. She and she already had a job so she just went to the interviews just to practice her skill of interviewing and I feel like and I didn't I thought that was a sin. I thought that that was a no-no you should not be doing them and but apparently she did it and I feel like you know what if she can do it I could probably do it too, so.

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Yeah, it's one of those things where just putting yourself in a, and taking yourself out of your comfort zone,

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like just, it'll help you grow. Yeah, you know, just like what Aparin said, you know, practice makes perfect, right?

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So they say.

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Yeah, yeah, of course.

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That was actually a really interesting time for both of us. I remember that, I went there because I just, I, you know, I have the connection to hospitality, I always had it. And I was just kind of just see what's out there. But I think that seeing you sort of change the way you thought about the whole thing kind of inspired me to be like, okay, well, you know, like anyone can do this. You know, if Christian was able to overcome his fear of like talking to people and getting himself out there.

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And this definitely correlates to your major as well too. Just because you have this major, for instance, like an art major, doesn't mean that you have to stick with art. There's other things, because technically that just tells you you're a very creative person. And I feel like creativity is very limited in the workforce. And I feel like that creativity can definitely help in any industry. Yeah, totally. I definitely would second that because there are some kids that just bring a different perspective. I mean, for example, I'm in hospitality, right? I'm doing my PhD, and I'm the numbers kid,

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and I bring a different perspective

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than anybody else that's there. There's another kid in there that he was, he's not a kid, he's a grown adult, and he was a manager of a nightclub forever. And so he has a different perspective than I do. And I think just because you're not in the major that goes into the job, doesn't mean that you can't apply for that job or try to become, or that doesn't mean you can't be successful in that job. Yeah, so for me, the reason why I chose the math major was just because I feel like that was well accepted in any industry. People work on math, no matter what field, no matter what job it is, math is involved in one shape or form kind of thing. So, you know, obviously, it was more theoretical than I wanted to. I was focusing more on the applications, and I think that's why I was resonating more on the economic classes, because I was also an economic minor.

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Were you really?

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I didn't know that. Yeah, I was an economic minor as well too. And I felt like that was more, and I thought that I should have been an economic major because of the classes and there were more real world applications and actually there was definitely a really great class and if you feel like you're gonna be an analyst, this is definitely a great class that I would recommend is econometrics. You mean like redressed stats for business majors basically? Yes, basically. It's so great because it gives you little mini projects that you can work in a group of four and you just use these, I forgot the BI tool, I don't know if you remember. Power BI. No, it wasn't Power BI. It was like this like reporting kind of program. But anyways, Stata. Stata.

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It was Stata.

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And I, and even though it was like very old, it was still worthwhile because in a way it thought, this is how I felt like you're gonna be an analyst.

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And it is.

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Oh, wow.

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Yeah, obviously I'm not using Stata.

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But like the whole idea of like collaborating on a group and working through a problem together, using data solutions, I mean, would you say that that class was a good replication of what it is in the real world?

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Yeah, of course. For me, it was more of like, because obviously it covers two core bases, right? One is statistics and the other is business. So those two worlds coming together really helps and I feel like that would definitely work well in that forum, in that industry, in that analyst. So yeah. That's really awesome, Christian. Well, we're running kind of short on time here. Do you give any final advice you'd give to the students out there, anyone that's trying to get a job? Yeah, of course. Don't give up on hope. I feel like people are easily swayed away. People are very easily just given up. And I feel like sometimes there's certain moments in our lives where you need to wake up, put on your shoes, take it step by step. It's not the end of the world. Not everything, you know, the sky is not falling. You know, it's not raining cats and dogs all the time. You know, I feel like that just from the sheer stress and the sheer pressure, right, from your friends, from your families, because obviously they're not going to tell you, oh, what are you going to do? Obviously you're going to see that from social media like Instagram, Facebook, all those pressure, even LinkedIn. Yeah, LinkedIn. You know, because everyone's saying, Oh, I just got a promotion. Oh, I just found my job. It's my dream job, right? You know, not everything is perfect. Not everything's going to go your way. To me, I'm a late bloomer. Yeah. And I feel like the things that I went through before I got my job taught me a lot. So, like I said, do not give up on hope. Just persevere. Just persevere. That's awesome advice, Christian. Thank you so much for being here.

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You are someone that I look up to. I respect you so much because I've seen your personal arc. I've seen you grow. I've seen you go from that math guy to, I mean, obviously I don't mean it in the...

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No, I know what you mean. So, I've seen you go from that math guy to blossom into a curious and hardworking and brilliant and just an asset for any corporation. I really, really, really, really appreciate you being here. No, thank you for having me on here. I really appreciate it.

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Thanks so much for listening to The Job Forum. the job forum. If you want any more details or have any questions visit my

0:28:54
website at manaaziz.com. website at manaaziz.com.

0:28:59
Welcome to the job forum.

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